I have been reading Love Over Scotland by Alexander McCall Smith and was taken by this passage:
Or could it be envy? Antonia was very conscious of the corrosive power of envy and felt that it was this emotion, more than any other, which lay behind human unhappiness. People did not realise how widespread envy was. It was everywhere-in all sorts of relationships, insidiously poisoning the way in which people felt about one another.
For some reason this just seemed so simple and yet so completely accurate. I have decided that my New Year’s resolution is to try and recognize when I feel envy and to let it go and more importantly to try and be content with my own lot in life and believe in my own choices and decisions. Last year my resolution was to defend teachers and the importance of our work and not feed into the culture that teachers are the problem with public education. I have done pretty good with this resolution so hopefully will do the same with envy. My second resolution for this year is to bathe the dogs more often but not so confident about this one.
On a side note, sitting on the handyman’s desk is a job application for the same position he does now in Bend, OR. Bend is on my top 5 list of places I want to live yet I am totally unexcited by this prospect. Timing is everything and with my parents in their late 70s moving 3000 miles away just doesn’t feel so right.
Here’s to a happy, healthy and productive 2008!
2 Comments
January 1, 2008 at 9:58 am
[...] MamaTried: I have decided that my New Years resolution is to try and recognize when I feel envy and to let it [...]
January 2, 2008 at 10:34 am
Resolutions are always hard. At least you pick things worth doing.
I want to read more but that’s not much of a resolution.